Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

Is It Too Late for Me .(Continued from page 28) ie weak sounds and had seen the tiny sitten huddled in a corner. Her heart went out to it, and like a child she lifted t and tucked it under her sweater. 'No one's going to throw you out," she'd whispered into the ears of the soft, shakng animal. Upstairs, she'd gone to the -efrigerator and taken out some cream. Then she smuggled it into the bedroom and began to feed the kitten. The story of Tuesday's "bad" behavior &t the party was whispered about for veeks afterwards. This is the first time the rue story has ever reached print. When a girl loses her reputation . . . Everybody's ready to believe the worst ibout Tuesday. When a teen-age girl loses ler reputation everything she does is udged harshly. For every teen-ager has « know what Tuesday is just beginning 0 learn. A teen-age girl must avoid not >nly evil, but the appearance of evil. If he doesn't, and word gets around that he's fast or slightly shopworn, the gossip vill grow and travel. The longer the gosip persists, the harder it will be for her b undo the damage already done. This is what Tuesday is facing today. Is it too late for Tuesday to protect .erself from her reputation? A rather chastened Tuesday is asking hat of herself these days. There is a very pecial reason why Tuesday is beginning d wonder: "Is it too late for me to be . ood?" The reason is a boy— a tall, wavy-haired, lean-cut boy. So far he isn't concerned bout her reputation. He's heard little bout it, and doesn't believe what he's eard. But every day Tuesday wonders, What will he hear about me today? Will >e hear something that will make him /ant to leave me?" . And Tuesday is learning what a lot of ;?en girls learn — that she must guard her eputation as her most precious gift, for Then a boy comes along whom she really ares for, her reputation may jeopardize is love for her. lie boy in Tuesday's life Richard Beymer is a handsome young :tor — he played Millie Perkins' boy■iend in Anne Frank — and he is the boy 1 Tuesday's life. She met him for the rst time several months ago on a plane ying to Stockton, California, when she Mras going on location for High Time. Im' P lediately they felt attracted to each other, ^hen they stepped off the plane, Dick ailed her aside and said, "Come on — let's ave the others and be by ourselves. Have b inner with me. I want to know you atter." t Tuesday looked at him and smiled softly, ii While they sat in the small restaurant, llf talked about himself. He'd come from a nail town in Iowa originally, but when Is family moved to Hollywood, he fell _.to acting. But he'd never gone with the ovie crowd. Then he said impatiently, t3ut it's you I want to hear about. You're jj real sweet kid." Boys had called Tuesday many things efore that evening — kookie, wild, sexpot. ut she couldn't remember anyone calling jj|sr sweet, the way this boy did, as though really meant it. She was startled. And icause this boy believed this of her, she , arted showing him a side of herself no 1 her boy had ever seen, except for brief ..ashes. . Right now, Dick Beymer is in love with Jesday, and Tuesday with him. He and fc,Jesday have been virtually inseparable since they met. It's an odd combination — this boy who doesn't smoke or drink, and Tuesday who has been smoking since she was fifteen and has had a reputation of being "sixteen going on twenty-six." Their dates are more wholesome than any she has had with any other boy. Dick has a small speedboat, which he keeps in the garage of his parents' house in the Valley. He piles it on a trailer and ties it to the back of his Austin-Healy. Then he and Tuesday drive out in his little car to Balboa. Tuesday wears jeans and a bulky sweater over a bathing suit, her hair pinned back in a pony tail, her face with only a smidgin of lipstick. They get out on the boat and drive it out in the ocean toward Catalina. They share a lunch she's prepared herself. Sometimes Tuesday helps drive the boat. Her hair flies in the wind and she laughs a lot, the spray making her face glisten. Often, Dick cups her shining, young face in his hands and kisses her. "You're sweet, you're a sweet, wonderful kid." And Tuesday glows. Tuesday has wanted this kind of wholesome date before, but most of her boyfriends thought she was putting on an act when she talked of it. Once she asked a boyfriend to take her on a date outdoors. He laughed at her. "You're kookie," he said. He thought she was indeed being kookie — affected — and didn't mean what she said. So he took her to a coffee house instead. They sat around in the murky place, populated by beatniks drinking cafe espresso and weeping about the state of the world. That particular night Tuesday didn't like it. She was tired of the whole bit. She got up abruptly, sneaked off, ran up to her home in the hills above the coffee house. Then she got into her car, drove to the beach by herself and ran along the surf. Her boyfriend had waited in his car outside her house, and when she returned in the wee hours he didn't believe her story that she'd driven off to the beach alone. Until Dick Beymer came along, very few boys believed that Tuesday was getting fed up with night life, that she was beginning to regret her own reputation for being wild, and wanted a wholesome date. Wasn't she the little darling of the beatniks, Hollywood's enfante terrible? People have tried to tell Dick about the Tuesday they know. He shrugs off what they say. "I don't know anything about Tuesday's past," he says. "I know her for what she is today. She's a sweet, feminine girl — more like a white kitten than the wildcat they say she is. I've dated different girls, but never took anyone seriously till I met Tuesday. I never associated with actresses before. Not for any special reason, but they just didn't travel in my particular orbit. Tuesday is different from other actresses, anyway. She doesn't care for PHOTOGRAPHERS' CREDITS The photographs appearing in this issue are credited below page by page: 9 — Pictorial Parade; 10 — Globe; 11 — Globe, Gilloon Agency, Pictorial Parade; 12 — Pictorial Parade, Wide World, Annan Photo Features; 13 14 Gilloon; IS— Pictorial Parade, UPI, Wide World, Gilloon; 16— Gilloon; 17 — Couch, courtesy Itkin Bros., Inc.; 20-21 — Nat Dallinger of Gilloon; 22-23 — Bernard Abramson of Vista; 24-25 — Zinn Arthur of Topix; 26-27 — Bernard Abramson of Vista; 29 — Sherman Weisburd of Topix; 30-33 — Michael Levin; 34-37 — London Daily Express from Pictorial Parade, Wide World, Jules Buck, UPI; 38-39— Curt Gunther of Topix, Lawrence Schiller of Globe; 42-43 — Curt Gunther of Topix; 45 Wayne Miller of Magnum; 46-47 — Leo Fuchs of Globe. parties. Actually, she finds them boring. Just as I do." Since meeting Dick, Tuesday is not as restless for the parties and the crowds. The other day she told a friend, "There are always a lot of people around to help you get into trouble but you have to get out of it by yourself. So I don't go to parties any more. I like small groups." "How small?" the friend asked. "Oh, two people," she replied. "The other person is Dick." It's different with Dick Tuesday behaves differently with Dick than she does with any other boy. She not only loves him, she respects him. She can't twist him around her little finger as she has her other boyfriends. When Dick makes a date with her, she keeps it. With other boyfriends, she often broke dates, or came very late with no explanation. Once, for instance, she had a date with John Franco, whom she used to date often. She was to meet John at his apartment at seven, then they were to go to a restaurant where they were to join other friends of his. Tuesday didn't show up at 7:00— nor at 8:00 or 9:00. John kept telephoning, but Tuesday was out. At 11:30 she showed up. She wore jeans, a red car coat and sneaks — hardly an outfit for dinner in a restaurant. "What happened?" asked John angrily. "Oh," pouted Tuesday, "I couldn't help it." "Couldn't help it? You knew about our date. . . ." "Yes, but that's the way it is," replied Tuesday, vaguely. Another time, when Tuesday had two boyfriends over at her house, she slipped out of the room while both were listening to records, and disappeared for hours. Both men were nonplussed. When she returned, she said, as though nothing had happened, "I just felt like driving in the hills by myself." With one of her boyfriends Tuesday once went to a party barefoot, in a crumpled, soiled chiffon gown. It had gotten that way when she ran down the hill to meet him. Any other girl would have gone back home to change— but not the defiant Tuesday. With Dick Beymer, Tuesday is different. She doesn't stand him up, walk out on him or dress in a way that holds her up to talk. She behaves actually wholesomely and 'normally. One night when she got into his car, she didn't have a drop of make-up on her face. Her eyes were shining. She hadn't even smoked a cigarette all day. They stopped at a pizza place, which is frequented by kids, and had a great time eating pizza. Other men in Tuesday's life If you're bold enough to ask Dick about the other men in Tuesday's life, he says, "I don't know anything about them — but there's only one guy in her life now, and that's me. I don't know the side of Tuesday that they talk about. I'm not interested in gossip about her. I've never seen that side of her. I love this girl for what she is — not for what people think she is. Tuesday has a lot of finding of herself to do. But we have plenty of time for it. She's only sixteen, I'm twenty-one. We haven't talked of marriage because we're both too young. But we date only each other." How long, Tuesday wonders, can this idyllic state of affairs continue? Tuesday has always been subject to swift changes of mood, bitter patches of rebellion— and at the same time there has always been a soft side to Tuesday that few people recognized until Dick fell in love with her. What made Tuesday this way?